THREATS AND RESPONSES: DOMESTIC SECURITY

THREATS AND RESPONSES: DOMESTIC SECURITY; U.S. WILL TIGHTEN RULES ON HOLDING TERROR SUSPECTS

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: June 13, 2003

WASHINGTON, June 12—
Federal authorities said today that they planned to use stricter standards for identifying and locking up terrorist suspects in light of concerns raised in a recent report that hundreds of illegal immigrants were mistreated after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Law enforcement officials plan to make at least 12 structural changes that were recommended in a report issued last week by the Justice Department inspector general, according to interviews with officials at the agencies affected by the report. Nine other recommendations are being actively considered, they said.

The move to embrace the bulk of the changes appeared to signal a greater acknowledgment of shortcomings in antiterrorism and detention policies than Justice Department officials had publicly admitted.

The recommendations that law enforcement officials have signed off on go to the heart of the criticisms leveled by the inspector general, officials said, and could portend significant changes in how illegal immigrants suspected of terrorism are investigated, arrested and detained.

Inspector General Glenn A. Fine's report found that few of the 762 illegal immigrants arrested after Sept. 11 had clear ties to terrorism, but that many were held for months in what the report characterized as harsh conditions, often without access to lawyers. Inmates in Brooklyn were subjected to physical and verbal abuse, the report found.

Attorney General John Ashcroft and his aides defended the department's conduct after the report was released, saying they ''make no apologies'' for doing everything in their legal power to aggressively deter another attack on American soil.

But officials at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security, which now handles immigration, have been scouring the report to determine how the problems it spotlighted can best be addressed. About a half-dozen agencies and offices within the two departments, including the F.B.I., the Bureau of Prisons and immigration operations, are affected.

Among the 12 recommendations that officials said they were ready to adopt are developing clearer criteria for determining which illegal immigrants are terrorist suspects, improving lockup conditions and policies for those in custody and giving immigration officials -- rather than the F.B.I. -- more authority to remove a suspect from custody.

Officials at different law enforcement agencies are still reviewing the other nine recommendations and are likely to accept many of those as well, officials said, adding that none has been rejected outright. The agencies affected by the report are expected to give their responses to the inspector general by mid-July on how they plan to follow up, if at all, on the recommendations.

Immigrant rights advocates cautioned, however, that even if all the recommendations were adopted, they might not go far enough to ensure that illegal immigrants suspected of terrorism were given proper access to lawyers, judicial review and adequate conditions of confinement.

Michael Chertoff, the assistant attorney general who leads the criminal division, said in a letter to Congress last week that he expected that the F.B.I. and domestic security officials would develop a better system for classifying subjects of terrorism investigations ''at the appropriate level of concern.''

The inspector general found that the F.B.I., particularly in New York City, made little attempt to determine whether the illegal immigrants arrested after the Sept. 11 attacks had true connections to terrorism.

The report suggested that the authorities arrested many illegal immigrants -- most of them Middle Eastern -- who became entangled in the terrorism investigation by chance through traffic stops, anonymous tips and other means. Investigators found that many suspects were simply grouped into categories ''of interest'' to the terrorism investigations and subjected to restrictive and sometimes abusive conditions of confinement as a result of that classification.

Mr. Chertoff said he expected the authorities to develop better systems to classify terrorism suspects, to set deadlines to release those cleared of terrorist links, to share information among agencies and to formalize a ''crisis management plan'' that defines responsibilities in the event of a similar national emergency.

''These enhancements would further reduce the potential for impinging on civil liberties,'' Mr. Chertoff said.

Law enforcement officials said they had already begun to make some structural and policy changes even before the inspector general's report was released, and they expected to make a host of further changes to reflect Mr. Fine's highly critical conclusions.

In one important change, immigration officials said they were no longer waiting for the F.B.I. to let them know if they could release or deport an illegal immigrant ''of interest'' in a terrorism investigation. Instead, immigration officials began notifying the F.B.I. this year that they planned to remove someone and then give the F.B.I. the chance to step in if it can show that the suspect could be linked to terrorism. Officials are now seeking to formalize and strengthen that policy.

Illegal immigrants taken into custody ''will no longer automatically be considered a special interest case just because they happen to go to the same flight school or register at the same Department of Motor Vehicles office as one of the hijackers,'' a senior immigration official said.

Like others interviewed about the recommendations, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the topic's sensitivity.

Such changes are being made ''really in response to our frustration'' over policies after the Sept. 11 attacks, the immigration official said.

''We were answering to the F.B.I. in more ways than we thought we ever would,'' the official added.

Immigration officials said they expected that the greater level of scrutiny would be likely to lead to fewer illegal immigrants being identified and detained as possible terrorism suspects. Fewer than 24 suspects remain in custody, the official said.

A senior F.B.I. official said the bureau planned to adopt a more consistent set of criteria for classifying suspects so that illegal immigrants in New York City were not treated more harshly than those picked up in other parts of the country. But the official added that the analysis would be case by case, and that it would not necessarily mean fewer terrorism suspects.

''You have to go for uniformity,'' the official said. ''You can't just raise or lower the bar. It will depend on the situation.''

While F.B.I. officials acknowledged a clear need to refine their internal policies, they rejected the suggestion from the inspector general that they had gone too far in the months after Sept. 11.

F.B.I. officials said they believed that the current debate obscured the climate of public fear and the logistical challenges faced by the F.B.I. after the attacks.

Joseph Billy Jr., who oversees counterterrorism in the New York office of the F.B.I., said: ''Yes, we're going to work to improve the process. A lot of it is really about better communication.''

''But you have to remember the tenor of the times after 9/11,'' he said. ''New York had 3,000 people killed. We were the target. Was what we did out of the realm, considering the times we were in? I don't know.''

Among other changes, Justice Department officials have decided to adopt a number of recommendations from the inspector general concentrating on the treatment of prisoners, a law enforcement official said.